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Read our latest daily deep dives, hot takes, and exciting updates about the entertainment world. Check out the latest insight from your favourite analyst, or search by coverage areas - music, entertainment and fandom, creator economy and social.

The Music Industry’s Next Five Growth Drivers

Mark Mulligan

22 May 2020

creator tools Fandom fitness

The risk with trying to imagine what the future might look like is to simply think it is going to be a brighter, shinier version of today. At this precise moment in time, this has perhaps never been truer.

6 min read

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PlayStation Now and Xbox Game Pass Increase Subscribers, But Recovery Will Favour Disruptors

Karol Severin

22 May 2020

Games

Both PlayStation (PS ) and Xbox have recently announced significant increases in their games streaming service user bases. Xbox Game Pass now has 10 million subscribers and PlayStation now has 2.2 million subscribers.

3 min read

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Bundesliga Offers Reality Check for What to Expect of Sport Post-COVID-19

Alistair Taylor

21 May 2020

AFL AGF Aarhus ar

Football (via the Bundesliga) finally returned to screens last weekend, not only serving starved sports fans with content during lockdown, but more importantly demonstrated what we can expect live football to look like in the coming months.

6 min read

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The Future of Live

Mark Mulligan

20 May 2020

Fortnite Games live

The almost total cessation of live music has sent shockwaves throughout the wider music industry. Though live companies are clearly at the epicentre, labels and streaming services are the in the blast radius too as the gaping hole left in most artists’ income is causing them to question their othe...

6 min read

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TikTok Steals a March On Disney

Tim Mulligan

19 May 2020

Disney Kevin Mayer TikTok

Kevin Mayer who has been instrumental in leading the Disney direct-to-consumer (D2C) strategy has left Walt Disney Co. to become CEO and COO of TikTok, the disruptive social media app owned by Chinese tech major ByteDance.

4 min read

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The Last Dance – ESPN Raining Threes

Alistair Taylor

18 May 2020

Adam Silver bundle Chicago Bulls

With the pandemic-enforced postponement of live sports creating an entertainment void for sports fans, US broadcaster ESPN played its trump card to capitalise on the thirst for stimulating content during lockdown.

5 min read

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Radio strategies 2020 & beyond

Keith Jopling

18 May 2020

Music

This is part 2 of our blog on Radio’s future and focuses on strategies for radio networks. MIDiA’s full report “Radio Is Switched On Again / Strategies for 2020 and Beyond” is now available to subscribers.

5 min read

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Endeavor, Epic Games and the Future Of Digital Entertainment Venues

Karol Severin

15 May 2020

digital entertainement venues endeavor Epic Games

Just a couple of months ago Endeavor was on its journey of building a true cross-entertainment conglomerate. Endeavor recognised a long time ago the synergies which can be achieved from cross-entertainment partnerships and bet heavily on this for its future evolution.

4 min read

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Video Steps into the First On-Demand Recession

Tim Mulligan

13 May 2020

on-demand SVOD Video

A much-cited phrase used to quantify the recent run of cable and satellite TV subscriptions cancellations in the US has been “horrific”. In Q1 the leading publicly-reporting traditional pay-TV providers reported a record 1.

3 min read

Artists – Have Your Voice Heard

Mark Mulligan

12 May 2020

Artist survey Artists midia artist survey

MIDiA is fielding its third biannual Artist Survey. Our two surveys last year were very successful and got hundreds of artist responses. MIDiA’s artist surveys takes the pulse of the artist community and provides this information back to the artist community.

2 min read

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‘You’re not singing anymore’ - English Premier League set to lose over $1 billion

Alistair Taylor

7 May 2020

Covid-19 Marketing Media

The English Premier League (EPL) is faced with the very real possibility that it will have to play out the entirety of the 2020/2021 soccer season behind closed doors, starving teams of more than $1 billion in lost matchday revenue.

5 min read

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Disney’s Results for Calendar Q1 Underlines The Importance Of its D2C Pivot

Tim Mulligan

7 May 2020

d2c Disney ESPN+

There was no dressing it up. Disney had a bad start to the year from a financial perspective. In its Q2 2020 (calendar Q1 2020) report the company announced an 85% decline in income from its continuing operations before taxes, and an even greater 91% decline in net income from continuing operations.

4 min read

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What is the value of exposure when exposure is all there is?

Mark Mulligan

6 May 2020

Covid-19 Music

There is an existential debate going on at the moment, around whether streaming is paying artists enough. It may feel like a rerun of old debates but it is catalysed by COVID-19 decimating artist income.

7 min read

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Does Virgin Media Plus O2 Equal A New UK Communications Major?

Tim Mulligan

6 May 2020

Banijay Comcast EPL

Liberty Global which is the parent company of Virgin Media, is in talks with Telefonica subsidiary O2 about combining the two businesses together to create a new UK challenger to BT. Virgin Media is the second largest pay-TV operator in the UK with four million video subscribers and 5.

5 min read

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How COVID-19 Catalysed Competitiveness Among The Video Majors

Tim Mulligan

5 May 2020

Covid-19

While the previous two months of pandemic disruption has had a dramatic impact upon video streaming, the overall direction of travel for video has remained constant, with video streaming remaining the future of TV and film consumption.

3 min read

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Collapsing Maul: Sport Facing Global Rights Re-valuations

Alistair Taylor

4 May 2020

All Blacks All or Nothing broadcast rights

The English Gallagher Premiership Rugby provides another case study that demonstrates just how significant COVID-19’s impact on rights holders is likely to be moving forward, as it faces a substantial drop in the value of its broadcast rights.

4 min read

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The IFPI Confirms 2019 was the Independents' Year for Streaming

Mark Mulligan

4 May 2020

Independent labels majors Record labels

UPDATE: this post has been updated to correct an erroneous data point. Previously it stated that independent market share was 41%. It has been corrected to 29% Recently I wrote about how a little-known Spotify statistic revealed that independents (labels and artists) outperformed the majors on its p...

2 min read

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The ‘Covid Bounce’ In Games Can Cloud Judgement About What Lies Ahead

Karol Severin

1 May 2020

Covid-19 Games

Compared to most, the games industry has benefited from the Covid-19 outbreak and related lockdowns. For a lot of games companies, engagement has increased and so have revenues, albeit just partially. Looking at the wider landscape suggests this will be a temporary dynamic which can cloud the view o...

4 min read

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Travis Scott has Only Scratched the Surface of Music Games Tie Ups

Mark Mulligan

1 May 2020

Artists coronavirus Covid-19

In February 2019 Marshmello caused ripples of almost tidal proportions across the music business when 10.7 million Fortnite fans watched him perform a ‘concert’ in the game. Then in April 2020 Travis Scott followed in his shoes with his own Fortnite concert, pulling in 12 million players.

7 min read

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YouTube Ad Revenue Continues To Grow But For How Much Longer?

Tim Mulligan

30 Apr 2020

Alphabet digital ads FAANG

On Tuesday (28th April), Alphabet, the holding company for Google released its Q1 2020 results. The performance of Google is hugely important across both the digital economy and the financial sector. Google and Facebook between them account for the overwhelming majority of digital advertising outsid...

3 min read

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